This invention relates to the field of man to machine interfacing as applied to the human controlling of an aircraft in response to external conditions.
The use of parallel stimuli or dual input channels to a human operator is widely recognized in the psychology of learning to provide faster comprehension of newly presented or rapidly changing input data and to reduce the error in human performance responsive to this data. The combination of sight and sound, for example, is often used in the academic classroom for increased rates of student comprehension. Similarly, the combination of feeling and sound are well known to be relied upon by sightless persons in discerning information--even information frequently overlooked by other persons exposed to the same environment.
Of current interest with respect to information comprehension is a problem in the field of vehicle control. This problem may include automotive, marine, and aircraft vehicles but is especially concerned with the high speed tactical or fighter aircraft. The foundation of this problem concerns the amount of information to be received and digested by an operator and the fact that the amount of available information is becoming so large as to be overwhelming and limiting in features that can be added to the vehicle.
Although the concept of providing feel or feedback to the controls of an aircraft or other man-machined system has been known for sometime, the source of the information fedback to the human operator in such systems has been the subject of considerable diversion, experimentation, and disagreement in the art. In the present invention, however, a physical reinforcement feel signal is added to the visual information sourced signal provided by a human operator such as an aircraft pilot. This information is added to the aircraft controls, specifically the aircraft control stick in order to increase the rate of flight information comprehension and improve the efficiency of the interface between aircraft pilot and flight control system.
The patent art includes several examples of control systems which are used in aircraft or industrial systems and which involve some degree of information feedback. Included in these patents are U.S. Pat. No. 3,920,966 issued to Siegfried Kenemeyer et al; U.S. Pat. No. 4,477,043 issued to the present inventor, Daniel Repperger; U.S. Pat. No. 4,578,562 issued to Lars Lindstom et al; U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,341 also issued to Daniel W. Repperger et al; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,800,721 issued to R.A. Camenska et al, and U.S. (Ser. No. 079,323) also in name of Daniel W. Repperger. Although these patents indicate prior inventive effort in the area of feedback controls systems, especially as applied to aircraft, none of these inventions achieves the advantage of reinforcing a visual image perception or an error condition with related tactile information.